Gaslight in Page Street (3 page)

‘The first prize goes to George Galloway,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘Second prize goes to ...’

Carrie’s squeal of delight almost drowned out the name of the runner-up as she hugged her father. ‘We won! We won!’ she cried out, looking up into his smiling face.

William looked over to the park railings and saw the bulky figure of George Galloway being patted on the back and having his hand pumped by his supporters.

Carrie turned to her father as she saw the firm’s owner starting to walk towards the mayor. ‘It should be you goin’ up ter get the prize, Dad,’ she said with a small frown. ‘It was you what won it.’

William smiled briefly. ‘It’s all right, Carrie. Mr Galloway knows that.’

After a few words had been exchanged between Galloway and the mayor, the trophy, a large silver tankard, was held up in the air and clapping broke out. The winner was surrounded by his friends and well-wishers as most of the spectators moved off home. William took his daughter’s hand and they left too, walking back to Page Street in the spring sunlight.

The Tanners’ home was a two-up, two-down house which adjoined the Galloway cartage firm in Page Street. It was the end house in a row of terraced houses that led from Jamaica Road towards the River Thames. From the main thoroughfare the narrow turning looked like most of the working-class streets in Bermondsey. It was cobbled and gaslit, with a small pub situated on the left-hand corner and a tiny tobacconist and sweet shop on the right. Two rows of identical houses stretched down towards the Galloway yard which stood on the bend, where the street turned to the right. The cartage contractor’s headquarters was a brick-built construction with a weather-board frontage and wooden gates which swung back into the cobbled stable yard. The gates faced the Jamaica Road end of the turning and the right-hand part of the premises, which were used to store the wagons, stretched along past the bend to where another two rows of houses faced each other across the narrow turning as it led along to Bacon Street.

The street looked very much the same as many other Bermondsey backstreets. Lace curtains hung in the windows of the ramshackle houses and the doorsteps were whitened. Most of the chimney-pots leaned askew and the grey slated roofs dipped and curved in an uneven, untidy fashion. Bacon Street had its own particular blight, however, in the shape of a tall four-storey tenement block. Even the tenants of the damp, draughty and overcrowded houses surrounding the building dreaded the thought of having to live in such a terrible place.

Inside the Tanners’ house, the family was gathered around a low fire. The evening had turned chilly and the parlour door was closed against the draught which blew along the passage from the ill-fitting street door. Nellie Tanner was sitting in her usual armchair beside the fire, a partially finished piece of embroidery lying in her lap. Nellie was a slim, attractive woman with a fair complexion and deep blue eyes. At thirty, her face was unlined and smooth. Her rather shapely figure was accentuated by a close-fitting long dark skirt which reached down over her ankles and a high-buttoned linen blouse with ruffled sleeves which hugged her full breasts and narrow waist. Her fair hair, which was a shade lighter than her husband’s, was swept up from her neck and piled on top of her head, secured with a wide mother-of-pearl fan comb.

Nellie liked to dress up on Sundays. When the main meal of the day was over she would go to her room and wash down in the tin bath before putting on her clean, freshly ironed Sunday best. She knew it pleased William to see her looking nice when they sat together in the long evening after the children had gone to bed, and she was aware that it roused him when she wore her tight-fitting clothes. Her long neck and high round forehead were exposed by her swept-up hair, which Nellie occasionally touched as she talked with her husband.

William Tanner was of medium height and powerfully built. His wide shoulders and muscular arms bore witness to eighteen years of hard manual work for George Galloway. Now, having seen his efforts with the parade wagon rewarded after a long hard week in the stables, William was feeling relaxed and contented. He eased back in the armchair facing Nellie’s and stretched out his legs. His pale blue eyes stared into hers as she spoke and he could sense irritation in her voice.

‘I know yer was pleased, Will, an’ yer’ve a right ter be, but yer’d fink Galloway would ’ave at least come over an’ fanked yer,’ she was saying.

William raised his eyes in resignation. ‘It was awkward, really, Nell,’ he replied. ‘There was people millin’ around ’im an’ I don’t s’pose ’e got the chance. ’E’ll see me termorrer. There’ll be time then.’

Nellie felt angry that her husband had been ignored by George Galloway at the parade. Every weekday morning William opened the yard and issued Galloway’s work orders to the carmen. Then there was the managing of the stables and the locking up after the last van was in, sometimes late in the evening. It was the same when one of the horses was lame or a horse sale was going on. Her husband was on call from dawn till dusk. True, William was paid two pounds a week, but he earned every penny of it, she told herself. It would cost George Galloway much more to call the vet in every time. Ever since they had married ten years ago, and Galloway rented them the house the carter had taken advantage of William - and her - one way or another, Nellie thought with bitterness. She knew she could never talk to her complaisant, easy-going husband of her own hatred for Galloway, and it tormented her cruelly.

William leaned forward in his armchair and Nellie was brought back to the present.

‘I’ll need ter slip into the yard before it gets too late,’ he said, yawning. ‘There’s the cob ter check. It might be the strangles.’

Nellie sighed and shook her head. ‘Yer’d better get in there then, Will. Yer promised me we was goin’ ter the pub ternight.’

William grunted as he eased himself out of the chair. ‘I’d better call up ter Carrie. She wanted ter come wiv me.’

Nellie was about to object but then thought better of it. Carrie was so like her father. She loved the horses and was worried about her favourite, the small Welsh cob that had been running a fever and had been taken out of the main stable.

Nellie heard her husband call Carrie and then the sound of the front door opening and closing. With a sigh, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

William undid the padlock and pushed open the wicket-gate. The yard was shadowy and quiet as he led the way to the left-hand side of the cobbled area where the horses were stabled. The building had two levels, and the upper floor was reached by a long straw-covered ramp. A loophole looked out from the higher level, near the noisy chaff-cutting machine and the harness room. The lighter, younger horses were stalled on this floor, and below in the larger stable were kept the heavier shire horses.

Carrie stayed close to her father as he passed the main stable and stopped outside a weather-board shed at the end of the yard. It was in this shed that the sick horses were kept in isolation from the rest. William had transferred the cob here as soon as it started coughing, aware that the sickness could easily spread and put the firm out of business.

William picked up the kerosene lamp which was hanging outside the stable door. When he had lit it, he went in with his daughter at his side. The horse was standing in its stall, munching on the last of the chaff. As the yard foreman eased in beside it, the animal turned its head then went back to its munching.

‘That’s a good sign,’ William said, easing down the side of the cob and taking hold of its halter. ‘Well, I fink he’s over it, but ’e’d better ’ave one more day in ’ere.’ He rubbed his hand over the horse’s nose and felt its neck just below the ear. ‘The swelling’s gone down too.’

Carrie had eased herself into the stall and stood beside her father, stroking the cob’s neck. ‘Can I exercise Titch in the yard termorrer, Dad?’ she asked excitedly. ‘’E’s gotta get strong before ’e can pull that cart.’

William laughed aloud. ‘It’s school fer you termorrer, me lass,’ he said quickly. ‘Yer muvver’s bin on ter me about the time yer missin’.’

Carrie sighed. ‘Can I do it after school? Please, Dad?’

Her father put his arm around her shoulders as they stepped out into the dark yard. ‘We’ll see. Maybe after tea.’

William and Nellie had left for the corner pub and the fire in the grate had burned down to white-hot ash. The eldest of the boys, eight-year-old James, had gone to bed with no fuss, having complained of a sore throat, but Charlie and Danny were reluctant to follow him. They wanted to stay up longer while their parents were out, but Carrie would have none of it.

‘Muvver said yer gotta be in bed by nine, Charlie,’ she scolded him. ‘Besides, Danny won’t go up on ’is own. Yer know ’e’s scared o’ the dark.’

Charlie stared down at his stockinged feet for a moment or two then his wide grey eyes came up to meet Carrie’s. ‘Can’t we stay down ’ere wiv you, Carrie? There might be ghosts upstairs,’ he said in a whisper, his eyes rolling around in exaggerated terror.

Five-year-old Danny was already half-asleep. He huddled closer to his elder brother for comfort. ‘I see a big ghost on the landin’ once, Carrie. I wanna stay down ’ere,’ he said in a hushed voice.

She chuckled as she lit a candle and set it into a metal holder. ‘Come on, I’ll see yer up the stairs. There’s no ghosts in this ’ouse. Only ’orrible children get ’aunted. Come on now, follow me.’

The candlelight flickered up the dark stairs and across the narrow landing, casting eerie shadows on the grimy wallpaper and brownish-stained ceiling and glimmering back dully from the brown paint of the back bedroom door. The boys huddled together, having frightened themselves with their stories of lurking ghosts, and when Carrie led the way into their room they jumped into bed and pulled the clothes up around their ears.

‘Stay up ’ere, Carrie,’ Danny pleaded. ‘I’m scared.’

She glanced over at James, sleeping soundly in the single bed by the window, and then set the candleholder down on the rickety washstand. ‘All right,’ she sighed. ‘But just till yer both asleep.’

Charlie turned on to his back. ‘I’m not tired,’ he moaned.

Within ten minutes both the boys were sleeping soundly and Carrie tip-toed down to the parlour. She rekindled the fire so that the room would be warm when her parents returned from the pub, then sat back in her father’s chair. It was past her own bedtime but Carrie was still wide awake. It had been an exciting day but she felt sad that her father had not been allowed to collect the prize. As she stared into the flickering flames she felt suddenly deflated. She had been happy for her father that day and wanted him to be happy too, but she had seen something in his eyes. They had a sad look in them at times. Was her father happy? she wondered. Would he always be there to care for the horses and let her help him in the yard?

The wind rattled the front door and Carrie shivered as she made her way upstairs to her front bedroom.

The usual early morning bustle had died down at Galloway’s yard, and as soon as the last horse and cart had left the cobbles were swept clean of droppings. The sound of the chaff-cutting machine carried down into the stable yard and in through the open window of the small office as the two men sat facing each other. George Galloway was sitting on a thin-framed oak chair beside his open roll-top desk, his elbow resting on a jumble of invoices and work orders which were strewn over its surface. He wore his usual single-breasted, black serge suit and a bowler hat pushed back from his forehead, and there was a satisfied look on his broad face as he fingered a small medallion that hung from his silver watchchain.

‘The milit’ry are comin’ down in a couple o’ weeks, Will,’ he was saying, ‘an’ the ’orses are comin’ in this Friday, so there’s a lot ter do. I want them nags lookin’ well groomed an’ sprightly. If Sharkey an’ Soapy ain’t out on the road, they can give yer a bit of ’elp: I expect we’ll ’ave those silly cows Aggie Temple and Maisie Dougall groanin’ again but they’ll just ’ave ter put up wiv it.’

William Tanner leaned forward in his chair and nodded. It seemed a whole lifetime since they had both run the Bermondsey streets as waifs. It was almost thirty years since the two of them had robbed the toff in the Old Kent Road and shared the proceeds, he recalled, yet only recently had George told him how he removed the medallion he was now fingering from their victim’s watch-and-chain to keep as a memento before he went to Stymie the fence. George was beginning to look old now, William thought. His heavy, powerful shoulders had started to droop and his face appeared to have a bluish colour about it. His hair was greying too, but it was the eyes that seemed to age the man most. They were puffy and heavy-lidded, and their whites had acquired a yellowy tinge. Nellie was convinced the man was killing himself with whisky, and William decided his wife was most probably right. George had been knocking it back ever since his own wife died three years ago after giving birth to Josephine.

‘If those two awkward mares come in ’ere moanin’, tell ’em ter piss orf,’ George was going on. ‘Better still, tell Oxford ter see ’em orf. ’E frightens the life out of ’em.’

William smiled wryly as he thought of Jack Oxford, but he had no intention of inflicting the firm’s simpleton on the two women. They had a genuine grievance anyway, he thought. Running the horses along the street was not only exhausting for him, it could be very dangerous too. It meant that the turning had to be kept clear of people, especially children.